Mining Memories

Saturday, 13 July 2013

Dog of Krishna

I always wondered why Srila Prabhupad said we are Krishna’s dog. This thought always bothered me why he chose a dog. Few days ago one of a very old friend of my family engaged himself and me in a long conversation. By Krsna’s unlimited mercy I am surrounded by souls who are extremely spiritual in various faiths. This uncle mentioned about qualities of Dog. He said a dog has up to 40 qualities; out of which one of the most important qualities is his humility. No matter how much you hit your dog, scold them, be rude to them they will still wag their tails on seeing you. They are so faithful that no matter what it takes they will always try to defend you from any potential danger..

After he went I reflected on our conversation, and was wondering we are not even as good as dogs and we feel so proud of ourselves. I remembered Srila Prabhupad often asked to feel like a dog, and my doubt was resolved why a dog? My Guru Maharaj HH Radhanath Swami explains the principle of Opposites attracting each other in terms of Spiritual success. He says Krishna is all powerful so if we try to show our power to him we will only repel him. Power of knowledge, wealth, renunciation or beauty etc cannot attract him. Humility attracts him. The more we get humble, the more Krsna will come running to us.

Such a simple attitude but we find it so difficult to adopt it. Because we can just not give up our egoistic identity of being a scholar, or super talented or an excellent human being or what’s more common “I know and understand everything” If someone scolds us even worse we hold eternal enmity against that person, we can never forget that insult, what to speak of still loving the person unconditionally. We are so conditioned in every walk of life, yet we are proud. We can Love only if we are loved, we can offer respect only if we are respected, we care only if we are cared for. And we talk about “trnadapi sunicena.”

I laughed at myself thinking that we claim to have so much knowledge; but realization- NONE. Just then I came across this quote “By reading you learn, but you understand by LOVE”. And it was so appealing. We may know everything, but we do not understand. No matter what we believe, we only Love ourselves. Because, if we were selfless we wouldn’t be hurt, we wouldn’t feel enmity, anger, hatred. We would only be concerned about the pleasure of our beloved.

Every time now when I see a dog, I feel “I am not even as good as him”.